Tag: akira

When I was growing up, most of the animated TV series and films I watched were pretty tame. While these cartoons did deal with a variety of subjects that appealed to pre-teen boys — be it outer space, super heroes, gigantic robots, etc. — the message of each was very simple; the good-guys always win, your heroes will never die and in the end everything will be alright.

And while I liked this kind of storytelling when I was younger, as I began to get older I found it less and less appealing. Luckily for me, though, at about the time I began growing out of these tame cartoons a new phenomena was beginning to emerge on the scene which were cartoons that were produced in Japan and redubbed for American audiences. Known for a time as “Japanimation” and now more commonly known as “Anime,” these cartoons dealt with themes that had been taboo in American produced animated fare like death, cruelty, the destruction of war and the real possibility of evil triumphing over good.

Click here to continue reading this column on Japanimation/Anime.